National Post (National Edition)
I know Joe. He's good for Canada
Chance to renew relationship with U.S.
Leadership is the litmus test of politics and public policy, and leadership is measured by a combination of substance and style.
On substance, U.S. President Donald Trump leaves a legacy of some significant achievements. His initiatives in the Middle East are impressive, securing peace and mutual recognition between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan and Bahrain — the first such success in the region in decades — as well as moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
His tax cuts and deregulation stimulated historic job creation, as well as driving the stock market to record highs. His campaign for NATO members to achieve agreed upon defence spending of two per cent of gross domestic product put many members of the alliance, including Canada, in an awkward position. But he was right about that.
But unfortunately, on the questions of style, President Trump misstepped with America's friends, none more so than Canada, America's closest friend of all.
At the G7 Summit in 2018, he showed up late in Charlevoix, Que., left early, refused to sign the normal communiqué and gave an interview aboard Air Force One criticizing summit host Justin Trudeau for “weak” leadership. One of my mother’s favourite sayings was, “You get more bees with honey.” But that evidently wasn’t the Trump way.
He was a spectacular campaigner, not unlike John Diefenbaker in winning his majority in Canada in 1958, and proved it again during his tour of battleground states in the final weeks of the campaign, making the election very close in the Electoral College, and winning 73 million votes, the second-largest number in the history of the republic. But on the paramount question of American leadership of the world’s democracies, his refusal to accept his election defeat has been an unfortunate example for all concerned.
On a personal level, while he ignored or insulted important leaders of the Western alliance, he was fostering relations with one-man rulers in Russia, China and North Korea.
And he repudiated multilateral agreements and institutions that were central to the West’s leadership: he pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement on climate change; he gave notice of quitting the World Health Organization in the midst of the pandemic; and he threatened to leave the World Trade Organization.
In addition, on his first day in the Oval Office, he signed an executive order withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which damaged American trade relationships in Asia, to the delight of China.
And he renounced the Iran nuclear arms deal, in which the Iranians limited arms production in return for reduced economic sanctions.
So it is a mixed legacy that he leaves, as all presidents do, for American and international historians to consider, soon and for decades hence. They will surely have a different sense of his successor’s world view.
Joe Biden is a multilateralist, and I say that as someone who has known the president-elect for 35 years. He’s been everywhere in the world and knows it well.
From a Canadian perspective, he is a good neighbour and will be a reliable friend. And he’s a very nice guy, there’s frankly no better way to put it.
For the prime minister, that’s very good news indeed. To give Justin Trudeau his due, he has earned high marks for conducting Canada-U.S. relations on transactional terms during the travail and turmoil of the Trump years, especially for the successful negotiation of NAFTA 2.0.
The new president will offer the prime minister the opportunity to renew and refresh the relationship from the top down. There are two timeless tests of any prime minister — first, national unity, the pandemic being the latest measure of federal-provincial relations, and then his conduct of the Canada-U.S. relationship.
He can begin by formally inviting Biden to make his first foreign trip as president to Canada, as most American presidents have done, Trump being a notable exception in 2017. The prime minister could also invite vice-president-elect Kamala Harris to visit Canada as the second home where she spent her formative high school years in Montreal from 1976-81.
Not all visiting presidents have addressed joint sessions of Parliament. President Ronald Reagan, exceptionally, spoke in the House twice, in 1981 and again in April 1987, when I was in office. The speech followed a working lunch at 24 Sussex Dr., where I spoke to him about the imperative of acting on two issues — acid rain and Arctic sovereignty.
He agreed and his team withdrew to an adjoining room and wrote a new closing paragraph to his speech while we had coffee. In the House, he said: “The prime minister and I agreed to consider the prime minister’s proposal for a bilateral accord on acid rain.”
He continued, saying that we “also had a full discussion on the Arctic waters issue and he and I agreed to inject more impetus into the discussions already underway.” The result of that conversation was the Acid Rain Accord in Canada, or the Clean Air Act in the U.S., adopted in 1991 during the presidency of my good friend George H.W. Bush. And Canada gained access to the Northwest Passage, affirming our Arctic sovereignty.
For any Canadian prime minister, success in Canada-U.S. relations begins at the White House with the rapport between the prime minister and the president, which sets an example for the administration. It extends to Congress and 37 states for whom Canada is their largest customer, due in no small measure to the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement of 1988 and the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1992, the template for the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
In return, the president and U.S. government get a friend they can count on at the G7, NATO, the United Nations and other world councils.
Presidents Reagan and Bush knew they had Canada’s unstinting support for their initiatives that led to nuclear arms reductions, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the First Gulf War, the implosion of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of its empire, with German reunification and the independence of Ukraine.
President Reagan was a gentleman through years of negotiations with Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, but as he said to us privately: “Our plan is simple — we win and they lose.” Which is precisely what happened, without a shot being fired. The West won the Cold War.
As I know from my own experience, an open door to the Oval Office opens many other doors for Canada. For example, as a middle power, Canada has only so much influence and leverage with China in seeking the release of the two Michaels, the Canadians now imprisoned as diplomatic hostages for two years in China.
But with American leadership and the support of all their allies, President Biden might well achieve success similar to Ronald Reagan in negotiating with the Soviet Union. And if President Biden decides to intervene against Beijing silencing free speech in Hong Kong, or brazenly threatening to annex Taiwan, Canada would obviously support the U.S.
On trade, always a top issue between Canada and the U.S., President Biden may have to choose between the environmental goals of progressive Democrats who oppose the Keystone XL Pipeline in the U.S., and other American interests such as trade unions that support it. He has that power of the pen in the presidential veto, and there is no doubt where Canadian energy interests lie in that.
Governing in the pandemic, from managing the border to finding ways of distributing refrigerated vaccine, is clearly the urgent priority in Canada-U.S. relations. But trade, the environment and multilateral issues are always on the policy horizon.
The relationship was once perfectly summed up by president John F. Kennedy in his address to Parliament in May 1961. “Geography has made us neighbours,” he famously said. “History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies.”
Those words are now carved in stone at the entrance to the U.S. Embassy on Sussex Drive. Words that stand the test of time.
BIDEN MAY HAVE TO CHOOSE BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTAL GOALS AND OTHER INTERESTS.